We Have a Wii Story Winner

Thanks to everybody who contributed a story about victoriously landing a Wii this holiday season!

Hopefully, the tales you shared under a previous blog entry gave others some sound strategies for finding a Wii duing the last weekend before Christmas. (Or, alternately, I hope these tales inspired people to give up on the craziness for now and maybe stay home with the family...)

Most of the stories, as you can see in the comments section, fall into a few categories: We lucked out, we woke up early, we knew somebody at a store, and we paid a little extra and bought off of Craigslist or eBay.

Nancy Grover of San Diego contributed one tale, the likes of which I had never heard. I like it partly because it sounds like an episode from the teleivision show "24." For sharing this story, I'll be sending her a couple of Wii games (I sent her a list of them and she'll hopefully get back to me with her picks soon).

Here's Grover's tale:

I live in San Diego, so when I found out that the duty-free store at the U.S.-Mexico border had a large supply of Wii's I drove the 30 miles to pick one up. Well, I got my system, but in order to fulfill the duty-free rules I had to step over the border into Mexico, then re-enter the U.S. No biggie, I've been crossing that border all my life, and it never takes too long on foot.

But this time was different. As soon as we passed through the gate, we saw a line of people stretching for miles --all waiting to get into the country. Seems there was some sort of security alert and it was causing a huge holdup. I didn't want to stand in line for four hours, so we paid some shady looking characters $10 a piece to drive us over. But after we got into the van, and our "driver" got questioned by the Tijuana police about why we were in their vehicle (he told them we were his "amigos"), all car traffic came to a stop. It ended up taking 2 1/2 hours in a hot, stuffy van filled with other shady looking characters, one of which was throwing up, to make it to the border. Then, to top things off, the van broke down and we had to push it over the line.

So, was it worth it? Yes! I've got a great game system and a great story to boot.

By the way, I did call this duty-free store and confirm that they did carry the Wii (though -- sorry everybody -- they are out of stock at the moment).

Comments

Well, I decided after being #37 in line at Toys R'Us one early morning when they only had 36, and then my daughter was having problems in one subject at school that I wasn't going to kill myself getting a Wii.

So on Friday I went over to the Gamestop and put down $250 for a raincheck for a Wii to come in sometime by the 25th. I turned out to be only #3 on the list since everybody was dying to get it for Christmas. I am presenting her with a certificate good for the Wii and she will have to wait. Her birthday is at the end of March so this will be a little early.

Posted by: librarianmom | December 24, 2007 7:03 PM

Still a lot in New Zealand, one store had 10 on the floor. we have been playing it all christmas, and we are all in our 30s, so much fun.